


Brave as a Noun

by babbyspanch



Category: Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 42, cannon typical emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26498299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babbyspanch/pseuds/babbyspanch
Summary: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 42Henry deals with his dad being an emotionally abusive, narcissistic cult leader. And also murdering him. And kidnapping his sons a second time. Thing’s have been a little wild.Darryl joins him for a reflective moment by the river.
Relationships: Henry Oak/Darryl Wilson, Henry Oak/Mercedes Oak-Garcia
Comments: 9
Kudos: 64





	Brave as a Noun

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after like. A fictional episode 43 where they kill barry, burn the commune to the ground with Glenns plan, and they’ve been traveling with the sparrow and lark clones since the big boss battle so the real boys are still with willy. I think canon barry is too lazy for that bs and the kids were swapped out pretty recently and they are probably hidden in the commune somewhere bUT LISTEN. I just think it would be neat.
> 
> Lmk if you guys think this needs to be tagged w a cheating warning? Def not the intent. Also will campos really came for our asses huh??????????????? ‘Not an actor’ okay boomer

Darryl came to see him the night they all killed Henry’s dad.

He sat down beside him, nervous and unsteady— but warm.

They were quiet. Henry studied the pile of ash he had shaken out from his clothing. He thought about how much there was from Lark and Sparrow’s homunculi, turned to ash in the oil fire. Burning bright and the shape of his two sons. Thought about the rending sound he could swear his heart made as it ripped itself in half. He had wanted to save these puppets, these pale imitations. These bodies forged and false that twisted and skin turned to charcoal in the flame— clay burned and not baked.

He remembers their fingers shattering. The sound that made. The pinky that landed at his feet, fingernail jagged where it had been nibbled by anxious teeth. Ash and the dust rolling toward him and sinking into his clothes. 

The instant they had found a place to camp, he had pulled off his birkenstocks and dunked them in the nearest river. Shook out his shirt and his shorts, left them out for hours, unable to wear them with the stains they still held. He eventually rubbed them on the river rocks, tried to push the oil and the wood and the grey from their threads. Eventually- fingers wrinkled, hangnails swollen, palms dry- he stopped himself and put them back on. Reveled in the damp that still clung to them, heavy on his shoulders. 

He was still perched on the rivers bank, the lazy current swirled its way in eddies around the pair of leather sandals. Small river rocks tumbled in and out of the hollow spots between the straps.

He felt even worse than the first time this had happened. 

When Lark and Sparrow's eyes rolled back and began to glow a sickly purple. When they faded from his arms. They were as far from him now than they had been then. Further even, his sons still trapped with Willie Stampler, of all people in the universe. He thought of Ron and he felt his heart twist on itself, still ripped and bloody and thumping away in his chest, erratic. 

They were not safe. Henry would go to them. Split off from the group as Ron and Glenn found their tethers. He’d do what it took to undo the last cuel act his father had in him.

Hopefully the last. God, _please—_ let it be the last.

“I understand more.”

Henry startled. He had forgotten Darryl was next to him.

The man had plunged his feet into the water beside his sandals— smelly trainers and socks abandoned up the bank. He didn’t meet Henry’s eyes, just continued to look into the water turning more and more colourless as the sun set and there was nothing left to reflect off of.

“Yeah?” Henry asks, voice cracking. He didn’t bother to clear his throat. It was obvious he had been crying— no point scrambling to hide it. He’d been crying since he had found out the truth. Since he had seen his mom and she was exactly the same in her brutality and her coldness and her love from an arms length. He had turned back into that little kid that wished on stars that she could both love and protect him at the same time.

Somehow, in her letting him down again, while he was grown with children of his own, it had been even more gutting. Another bruise in his chest.

Beside him, Darryl nodded— brim of his cap shading his gaze. 

“Yeah. The anger stuff. The holier-than-thou stuff. The ‘can’t say no to your boys' stuff. It all makes a lot more sense.”

Henry winced.

Darryl pressed his shoulder into Henry’s. Neither of them knew what to say. Henry normally guided these conversations, and he was staying quiet. But, Darryl’s bulk was comforting. And that alone was almost enough.

“I don’t want absolvation.” Henry said, still hoarse. “Or forgiveness.”

“Not offering it.” Darryl says, grin lopsided as he finally turned to look at Henry. “Can’t give it in the first place. I was never exactly hurt by any of your blow ups.”

“How about the holier-than-thou parenting advice.”

Now it was clear how deeply Henry had been talking out his ass. Grant needing to see Darryl as vulnerable. Nick needing to be seen. Terry to be loved as a son in order to return it. He hoped he didn’t ruin the other’s children as he had ruined his own.

He grit his teeth. That was his father. Pushing his voice into Henry. Several hours dead now, the corpse still cooling and charred somewhere in the forest of his own crafting. Tree after tree after tree. 

His son’s didn’t deserve to be seen like that. Especially not by their own father.

“That could sting here and there. But it was real. And you were right. I just was.. insecure about the whole thing. But… You _know_ no one’s perfect. Especially not fathers, right Henry- Hen?” Darryl frowned a moment before settling on: “Henry.”

Henry is quiet but felt the affirmation of identity swirling in his chest, solid as the earth under his feet.

“Yeah. Henry.” He nods, adding his own affirmation to the ground below them. 

“Parenting is hard. We all know that. Your dad—“ Henry sucked air in through his teeth, harsh and quick. “— your dad was a piece of shit. Wasn’t cut out for having a kid. Hurt you and abused you. And was stupid to boot.”

Henry glanced up sharply, gaze heavy with doubt.

“Stupid to not love you.” Darryl confirmed. “And stupid enough to have been killed by _us,_ of all people.”

Henry snorted.

“We want to know these things, Henry. We want to help. Whatever you want to share— we will take. We will hear you.”

Henry looked back down at the river and took out his shoes. Put them- wet and squelching- back on his feet. He knew if he didn’t, the leather would shrink. They’d be unwearable.

“You’ve all helped more than you know.” He said, and fastened the last buckle, fiddled with the metal his fingers found there. His eye caught on the twilight of the tableau. Took in the musty blues and lavenders. He knew if he looked up they could spot stars through the canopy, strange and different from the ones he had learned with Mercedes. His chest ached.

“Yeah, well. Get used to that. We still need to get Sparrow and Lark back.”

Henry’s back snapped straight and his gaze flung itself back to Darryl.

Darryl frowned. “You’re surprised by that?”

Henry shrugged, swallowed. “Ron and Glenn still need their tethers.”

Darrly looked at him, bewildered. “And we’ll get them after.”

Said so simply and blankly like he and the others had never considered anything else.

Henry was crying again. Tears dropping from his nose, expression unchanged on his face. “You shouldn’t speak for them about this— they want to get home. Ron misses Samantha. Glenn misses... something I’m sure.”

“We all miss things.” Darryl confirmed. “I know you miss Mercedes. Your little co-op grocery store. The museum.” He shrugs his big shoulder, round and t-shirt clad.

Henry balanced a chin on his knee. “What do you miss?”

Darryl frowned. Thought it over, serious line for his mouth. Finally he said, “Football playoffs.” 

His smile was crooked, pain hitched up behind it.

“I know I’ve already said it, but Darryl I’m sorry about Car—“

He raised a hand. Face almost stern. “Not here to talk about that right now. The point is we’re coming with you. Lark and Sparrow are our family too, at this point.”

Henry was surprised by the smile that broke out over that. A laugh slipped through and he brushed a hand though his kinky hair, before he dissolved back into sobs, burying his face in his hands.

“I need the help.” He said, voice snapped in the middle. 

“We have you.” Darryl said, low. He pulled Henry in, curled him up close in a hug. Henry leaned into him. Breathed. In through the nose, out through the— _No_.

“I hate him.” His words sounded poisonous. For a moment, he was terrified they would leach into Darryl somehow. Sink into his bloodstream and kill him. Darryl just held him tighter.

“He was awful.”

“I’m not going to stop hating him.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s going to twist up inside me and everyone will see it and one day it’ll get too big and it’ll rip from me and—“

“You’re allowed to hate, Henry. You’re allowed your rage. You’re allowed. You need it, just like everyone else.”

Henry looked up, still in Darryl's arms, faces entirely too close. “You know what I can do. You know the power I have and the— the things I can _do_.”

“Yeah, I know.” Darryl said, soft, eyes luminous and round. “I also know how much love is in you. Genuine love. Not the preformative stuff.”

Henry gaped a little, mouth soft with shock.

“Think back on the times you’ve used your power… You did it out of love. Protectiveness. Not rage. We killed your dad because he took your kids. Not because you hate him. Not because your mom told you to. Not because you were _angry._ ”

Darryl pushed his thumb under Henry’s glasses, caught one of the tears there and dragged it away. The skin turned cold where he touched, after the warmth pooling out of Daryl's hand had passed over it.

Henry let his face rest in Darryl's hand. Pushed his nose into the man’s wrist. Let his breath roll down his inner arm. Pictured the warmth chasing the veins there and followed them to Darryl's heart, warming it.

His fingers raised, wrapped themselves around the veins he had seen split on his grandmother, and held the skin shut. He pushed a kiss to the tributaries of his blood, sealed the skin against everything that could seep into this man.

The leathery skin of Darryls old-new pinky brushed against his cheek and Henry felt a hedy rush. That had been for his boys. He ran his fingers over it, this glimpse of Darryl as an old man. He was shocked it didn’t pop off in the battle. He wondered at Darryl's hand traumas for a moment, laid them out as a list in his head. Felt it as his fingers brushed against Darryl's heavy wedding ring on their meandering path.

He sobered, slowly and pulled back from him, reluctant but resigned, fingers lingering on Darryl’s skin until the last possible moment.

Darryl just watched. Eyes still round and liquid and dark. Eventually, into the purple night he whispered:

“We’re not going anywhere. We want to help. I want to help you.”

It felt warm and voluminous and electric. It meant something. But not just yet. There were conversations to be had.

Henry smiled and let himself sink into his feelings. He cast his breathing exercises away as Darryl sat with him, steady and warm on the banks of a tiny river in his long forgotten world under his long forgotten stars. And Henry thought of home. And he thought of Mercedes. And he thought of his boys. And he thought of himself. And Darryl didn’t shift once.

**Author's Note:**

> *youtuber voice* Leave a comment w the number of times u cried at the new episode eh lads?


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